Shekar Ayyar

Executive Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development and General Manager, Telco NFV Group

Shekar Ayyar joined VMware in June 2007 and serves as the company's strategy and corporate development efforts as well as general manager of VMware’s Telco Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) group, which is designed to help communications service providers accelerate innovation and launch new services faster, easier and with less expense through virtualization of telecommunications core networks and network functions. In his Strategy and Corporate Development role, Ayyar is responsible for aligning strategy and long-term planning across VMware businesses as well as managing the company's mergers and acquisitions, and strategic investments. Under his leadership the company has executed on several acquisitions including Nicira and Airwatch.

Ayyar brings more than 15 years of senior leadership experience in enterprise software, communications and semiconductors. Prior to joining VMware, Ayyar held senior roles at BindView, Instantis and Lucent, spanning product management, marketing, and business development, and was also a consultant with McKinsey. Ayyar earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and MBA from the Wharton School where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar. He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Ayyar serves on the Board of the VMware Foundation.